Rituximab May Provide Greater Benefits Than Other First-Line MS Therapies

The drug appears to be associated with a higher likelihood of adherence and a lower rate of relapse.

Neurology Reviews. 2018 February;26(2):10-11

Rituximab is associated with a lower drug discontinuation rate than all other commonly prescribed disease-modifying treatments (DMTs) used as initial therapy for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a retrospective study of patient data from a Swedish MS registry.

In addition, relapse rates were lower with rituximab (Rituxan) than they were with injectable DMTs and dimethyl fumarate (Tecfidera), according to the study, which was published online ahead of print January 8 in JAMA Neurology.

The results suggest that rituximab “can be considered an option” for treatment-naive patients with relapsing-remitting MS, according to Mathias Granqvist, MD, a graduate student in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and his coauthors.

Anti-CD20 agents such as rituximab are “likely to become an additional treatment option” for relapsing-remitting MS, and off-label use of rituximab for this indication has “increased considerably” in Sweden in recent years, the investigators said. Relapsing-remitting MS is not an approved indication for rituximab in the United States, but in Sweden “there is no difference in reimbursement policy ... because all DMTs are covered by the national health insurance, including off-label medications.”

The emergence of new DMTs for relapsing-remitting MS has changed the treatment landscape recently, although in real-world practice, there is a lack of “detailed knowledge about how to tailor therapy,” the authors said. They noted that the majority of patients discontinue traditional first-line treatment with injectable DMTs (ie, interferon beta and glatiramer acetate) within two years, suggesting a need for better treatment options.

To evaluate the real-world effectiveness of rituximab in this setting, Dr. Granqvist and his colleagues selected patient registry data for two Swedish counties that included 494 participants who received a diagnosis of relapsing-remitting MS between January 1, 2012, and October 31, 2015.

The largest subset of patients (215) received injectable DMTs, while 120 received rituximab, 86 received dimethyl fumarate, 50 received natalizumab (Tysabri), 17 received fingolimod (Gilenya), and six received other treatments, according to the authors.

The proportion of patients who stayed on treatment was significantly higher for rituximab versus all other DMTs. Compared with rituximab, the hazard ratios for drug discontinuation, after adjusting for covariates and propensity score, were 11.4 for injectable DMTs, 15.1 for dimethyl fumarate, 5.9 for fingolimod, and 11.3 for natalizumab.

Rituximab-treated patients also had lower rates of clinical relapse, neuroradiologic disease activity, and adverse events, compared with patients who received injectable DMTs or dimethyl fumarate, according to the investigators.

In comparison with fingolimod and natalizumab, rituximab was associated with lower relapse rates and fewer gadolinium-enhancing lesions, but those differences did not reach statistical significance in all analyses.

The study was funded by the Swedish Medical Research Council, among other sources. Study authors reported conflicts of interest related to Biogen, Novartis, and Genzyme.